In a clear change of direction, TripAdvisor has begun adding private rooms to its vacation rental property portfolio.

The company has up until very recently typically listed only entire homes in its ‘Vacation Rentals’ and ‘Holiday Rentals’ categories, where owners of rental homes were given the option of listing in over 30 property types ranging from apartments to yurts.

The addition of ‘private rooms’, through it’s subsidiary company Flipkey, would appear to be a move into a space recently dominated by Airbnb and will certainly please home owners looking to use other listings platforms – HouseTrip announced a move away from private room rentals in 2014.

Laurel Greatrix told Skift: “This is a very recent addition and it means that any homeowner, anywhere in the world, can now list their spare room for free through TripAdvisor Vacation Rentals. Travelers will see spare rooms listed in their search results alongside other properties available in the area they’re looking at”

“TripAdvisor’s mission is to help travelers book and take the perfect trip. For a growing number, this means the opportunity to live like a local in their destination and stay in non-traditional, more affordable accommodation. As the world’s largest travel community, we’re excited to connect these travelers with the increasing number of homeowners who are sharing their homes, spare rooms and local knowledge with visitors from all over the world.”

…“As for number of markets it’s in, it’s available anywhere in the world. Any homeowner with a spare room or entire property is welcome to list.”

List Your Property or Private Room on TripAdvisor & Flipkey

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In the second quarter of 2016, HomeAway, newly acquired by Expedia, will be introducing new fees for guests / travellers across its network who book properties through the HomeAway checkout marketplace.

CEO Brian Sharples said in November 2015 “Today we’re announcing business model changes, including the addition of a traveler service fee in mid-2016, which will dramatically change our ability to compete and thrive in the coming years”

“Better monetization will allow us to accelerate revenue growth, but most importantly will provide more resources for an even better product and service experience for our owners, property managers and travelers.”

It will be included as part of the first payment by credit card and will be refunded if the booking is cancelled.

“Traveler service fees are commonplace in the travel industry, and based on research, we do not anticipate that a service fee will be a meaningful deterrent to travelers wanting to book your property” say the vacation rental leader on their website.

Owners on a pay-per-booking will see commissions reduced from 10-8%.

Comparison: Airbnb charges guests booking fees of 6-12% and charges hosts a 3 % commission.

What is the fee?

The fee will be applicable to all pay-per-booking listings and owners with subscription that enable online bookings. It will depend on the overall cost of the booking but will range on a sliding scale from 4-10% of the total booking cost. The lower the amount, the higher the percentage fee will be, with the average expected to be around 6%.

How will the traveller see the service fee?

The service fee will be included in the ‘total’ booking price but guests can see a line-item on your more detailed price quote.

Moving towards 100% online booking?

HomeAway also encourage owners to use online booking to avail of their ‘best match’ facility. The company also states “…when your traveler checks out through HomeAway, they become eligible for enhanced protections and services, improving their booking experience through increased peace of mind“.

How are owners reacting?

Across lots of forums, owners on a subscription based model are unhappy about the additional cost to guests. Many feel that if they do not want to adhere to the ‘Book It Now’ online payment implentation (and enable the traveller fee), their property will plummet down the search listing results. The other main bone of contention is that lower-priced properties are being more heavily penalised than higher-priced ones.

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NeedMoreRentals 2013 Holiday Rentals Marketing Survey

Earlier this year we carried out a short survey which 287 holiday rental home owners and managers answered.

The question posed:
What are the most important aspects for rental home owners to consider when using a listings site?
(Please choose up to 5 answers)

40 suggestions were provided however many respondents gave their own.

Perhaps the most surprising result is the importance owners and managers place upon the Google ranking of a listings site. A link to a personal website, a good overall design, value for money and an availability calendar made up the top five answers.

The responses varied widely so we have highlighted the leading factors in the chart below. The figures represent percentages of everyone who took the survey (in most cases respondents gave several answers).

*Other reasons given

• Ability to view monthly enquiry figures
• A Good rental rates table
• A Risk-free guarantee
• Speed of registration and advert posting completion
• Ease of use
• General advice for owners
• Ability to view monthly visitor figures
• Owner verification
• A guest review system
• Instant booking payment processing
• Transparent pricing structure
• Unlimited images
• Comprehensive content management interface
• Secure payment facility
• Social media promotion
• Traffic and where it comes from on a local search
• Visible owner testimonials
• Different languages
• Must be free
• Data capture and reporting
• Security from phishing
• Easy navigaton
• Existing base of customers
• Control over language translations
• Visible phone numbers
• Alexa ranking
• Call other users regarding ROI
• Ability to move listings in search results
• Support from BookingSync
• Visible owner testimonials
• Ability to add several photos at once and ease to move in proper order
• Downloadable PDF Brochure

The post Our Holiday Rentals Marketing Survey 2013 appeared first on Need More Rentals.

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Here is a list of some of the 2013 events:

• 25-28 January: Ideal Homes Property Show, National Motorcycle Mueum, West Midlands UK
• 28 February: Leisure Real Estate Summit: Andaz Hotel, London.
• 02 March: First Time Buyer Home Show, Grand Connaught Rooms, London.
• 02-04 March: International Real Estate Investment and Development Event, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
• 05-07 March: Ecobuild, Excel Centre, London.
• 08-09 March: International Investment Show, Tishinka Exhibition Centre, Moscow.
• 12 March: Royal Institute of British Architects Dream Builders event, Portland Place London, with guest speaker Daniel Libeskind.
• 12-15 March: World MIPIM property show, Palais des Festival, Cannes, France.
• 15 March-01 April: Ideal Home Show 2013, Earls Court, London.
• 15-18 March: Overseas Porperty Investment Show Spring 2013, Shanghai Exibition Centre.
• 26 March: Association of Residential Lettings Agents conference, Hilton Metropole, London.
• 28-31 March: Cityscape Egypt, International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Cairo.
• 29-31 March: International Luxury Property Show, Qingdao, Shangdong, China.
• 01-03 April: Ecobuild China, Shanghai New Internatonal Expo Centre.
• 09 April: Royal Institute of British Architects Dream Builders event, Portland Place London, with guest speaker Norman Foster.
• 12-14 April: A Place in the Sun, Olympia, London.
• 12-13 April: 20th Moscow International Property Show, Tishinka Exhibition Centre, Moscow.
• 13-14 April: Helsinki International Property Show, Wanha Satama, Helsinki, Finland.
• 15-18 April: Real Estate Investment World China 2013, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Shanghai.
• 16-18 April: Cityscape Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre.
• 16-18 April: Ecobuild India, BEC Mumbai.
• 19-20 April: The Property Investor Show Spring 2013, ExCel Centre, London.
• 19-21 April: InvestIndia Property Show, Equatorial Hotel, Penang, Malaysia.
• 30 April-02 May: Dubai International Property Show, Dubai International Exhibition Centre.
• 19-21 May: DX Interiors, Design and Technology event, Excel Centre London.
• 23-26 May: Madrid International Real Estate Trade Fair, IFEMA exhibition centre, Madrid.
• 27-29 May: Cityscape Qatar, Doha Exhibition Centre, Doha.
• 31 May-02 June: Luxury Property Showcase, Legendale Hotel, Beijing, China.
• 14-15 June: The Property Investor Show, National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham, UK.
• 23-25 August: Home Buyer and Property Investments Show, Melbourne, Australia
• 17-19 September: EcoBuild Southeast Asia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• 03-06 October: Overseas Property Investor Show Autumn 2013, Shanghai Exibition Centre.
• 07-09 October: International Trade Fair for Commercial Property and Investment, Munich, Germany
• 11-12 October: The Property Investor Show Autumn 2013, ExCel Centre, London.
• 18-20 October: Urbe Valencia Real Estate Fair, Valencia, Spain

The post Property Investment Exhibitions 2013 appeared first on Need More Rentals.

We’re currently making some changes to improve the way that enquiry emails are sent to you, specifically the system we use to send them. Why? To make sure your enquiries get to you quickly. Just in case, it is always worth checking your junk/bulk folder in the event that your email provider wrongly identifies our emails.

Some BT and Yahoo email account holders have reported delays when receiving enquiries to their email inbox. We forward lots of emails each week and some are being wrongly identified as junk/bulk email by these providers – the emails are held temporarily until your provider releases them. The updates we’ve made should help to solve this problem.

Your Inbox within your Holiday Lettings account hasn’t changed, but here’s a quick reminder of how it works:

• All enquiry emails and conversations are also logged in your Holiday Lettings Inbox for your security
• You can reply to the enquiry from your email account – just hit reply – or from your Holiday Lettings Inbox. Either way, we forward all emails and attachments to your guest
• Guest email addresses and telephone numbers are stored securely within your Holiday Lettings Inbox

Why we’ve stepped up security

When we send enquiry emails to you, the email address is ‘encrypted’. This means that, should a hacker manage to access your email account, they won’t be able to see the guest’s real email address and take money from the guest while posing as the owner.

As all conversations are stored in your account, you’ll always have a comprehensive record of all email conversations between you and your guest. If you delete an email by accident, you’ll still have a record of it in your account.

The post Holiday Lettings enquiry emails appeared first on Need More Rentals.

HomeAway.co.uk today introduced ReservationManager to its UK portal and will partner with HolidayRentPayment to enable advertising owners to streamline bookings and accept payment online.

Its partner, HolidayRentPayment.eu, is one of the leading providers in Europe for holiday rent payment solutions. Charges for domestic UK payments are a flat 1.4 %, compared to PayPal’s rates which start at over 3.4%, whilst international transactions on ReservationManager start at 1.9%.

US flagship site HomeAway.com introduced this last year and owners are already using ReservationManager to process holiday rental bookings online.

Andy Cockburn, Regional Director for HomeAway UK, says “We are committed to making booking a holiday rental as quick, simple and secure as a hotel, so more holidaymakers can enjoy the space, freedom and value this alternative accommodation option provides. As we drive adoption of e-commerce in our customer base, more and more bookings will flow through our checkout, improving holidaymaker experience and adoption of rentals and driving forward this market.”

CEO and founder of HomeAway Brian Sharples added “We developed ReservationManager as a result of feedback from our customers,”  “Owners desired a simple and efficient way to interact with guests, and guests prefer the convenience and security of paying online. We are happy we found a key partner in HolidayRentPayment in order to enable ReservationManager™ to deliver both, and we’re thrilled with the initial response from our customers in the US and look forward to similar success in the UK.”

ReservationManager features include:

• Online payments – 1.4 percent for standard credit/debit cards and from 1.9 percent for international payments, powered by payment leader HolidayRentPayment.eu
• Owners have the option to enable a ‘book now’ button and completely automate the booking process
• Customisable e-mail templates – to facilitate quick replies and the ability to store a record of communications sent
• Quotes – owners can enter standard rental fees and taxes once and save for future quotes; quotes are then automatically populated in rental agreements and payment requests
• Online Rental Agreement – owners may upload their own rental agreements and guests must agree to the terms of the contract online before making a payment; cancellation and refund policies may be also customised

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Users of Booking.com, Priceline’s leading booking portal of 260,000 hotel reservations, will probably have noticed the recent addition of rental homes across it’s offerings.

A deal with Interhome will pull in around 2,500 from it’s network of 32,000 rental properties.

“Our goal is to be the place on the Internet where travelers can find the right place to stay at whatever budget or for whatever need no matter where they come from or where they wish to travel.”

According to Booking.com the expansion into holiday /vacation rental properties is currently just in locations with a specific demand for this type of lodging rather than a move to rental properties across its whole network.

The expansion will strike fear into a market largely lead by HomeAway, TripAdvisor and Airbnb.

The post Booking.com adds rental homes appeared first on Need More Rentals.

When a guest looks for accommodations in a ‘Neighborhoods’ enabled city on Airbnb.com (Berlin, San Francisco, London, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Washington presently), they will find a list of suggested filters to help them narrow their results down to specific areas by selecting characteristics like Peace & Quiet, Artsy, Shopping, Nightlife and Touristy.

In San Francisco, Airbnb has also announced Local Lounges, a directory of local coffee shops that have partnered with the company offering free Wi-Fi and travel guides.

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Enquiries for key destinations in Europe increased during Q3 with interest hitting a peak in August. Unsurprisingly Spain and France remain the most popular destinations with an equal amount of 24% of enquiries coming into OGC between July and September. Favourable exchange rate and sharp falls in property values are the primary factors, especially in Spain.

Enquiries for properties in the USA and Australia levelled in Q3, with slight increases for New Zealand and Canada.

“Let’s not forget, the euro was at a four-year low against Sterling by the end of July this year – no doubt a contributing factor to the especially busy August” said Richard Way, editor of OGC.

“Combine that with the knock-down prices, which families would have seen first-hand during their summer holiday in many destinations, and you can see where the interest has come from. The results of our Q3 Quarterly Index support the finding from our recent survey that more than 79% of Brits have not been deterred from buying in their chosen overseas destination by the current economic crisis.”

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